Gold Prices Finish Slightly Higher On Weaker Dollar

RTTNews - Gold finished slightly higher on Tuesday, but surrendered most of its early gains. With the advance, the metal moved away from a recently-seen two-week low.

August-stamped gold finished the session at $954.70, up $2.20 on the session. Prices reached as high as $964.50 in early-morning trading, compared to yesterday's low of $943.80.

Gold's hedge appeal was boosted by a weaker U.S. dollar. The greenback turned lower against the euro, falling below 1.4100 after challenging 1.3800 on Monday. The buck also saw weakness against the British pound and Japanese yen.

Also boosting the metal's hedge value crude oil rallied to finish above $70 a barrel for the first time in 2009. Light sweet crude finished at $70.01, up $1.92 for the session.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it would allow 10 major banks - including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group (GS) - to buy back preferred stock and warrants invested by the department to shore up the financial system.

A Commerce Department report showed that wholesale inventories fell 1.4 percent in April following a revised 1.8 percent decrease in March. Economists had expected inventories to decrease by about 1.1 percent compared to the 1.6 percent drop originally reported for the previous month.